Bigmouth Strikes Again

Johnny Marr's opening guitar riff arrives like a slap — bright, aggressive, slightly trebly — before Morrissey sails in with the theatrical confidence of someone who has been wronged and cannot wait to tell everyone about it in the most entertaining terms possible. The rhythm section pushes forward urgently, Joyce's drumming carrying a barely-contained energy that keeps the whole thing from tipping into self-parody. Lyrically the song is a catalog of perceived injustices framed with gleeful hyperbole — the narrator positions himself as a martyr of his own wit, persecuted by the very talent that makes him insufferable. The production is clean and slightly compressed in the style of mid-eighties British indie, all jangly surfaces and no depth. Morrissey's vocal delivery is peak performance art here: he half-sings, half-declaims, stretching syllables for comic effect, playing innocent while clearly enjoying every grievance. The song's central tension — between genuine hurt and the comedy of voicing it this way — is what gives it staying power. It is simultaneously a sincere complaint and a parody of sincere complaints. Culturally it arrived at a moment when British indie was carving out space for self-consciousness and verbal dexterity as forms of machismo. This belongs on a driving playlist when you're in the particular mood of being aggrieved about something you know you are also slightly ridiculous for caring about.